by Maine, Miley
“Not being around is much better than being arrested for taking out an illegal loan.”
The fact that he even knows about this makes me wonder if he had something to do with it. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that he orchestrated it all somehow. But I can’t start accusing him of this. Not now anyway. I need to at least keep him on side for a little bit.
“I think we need to meet,” I tell him seriously. “We have some stuff to discuss.”
“And can’t we do that over the phone?” The smug bastard knows that he has the upper hand right now. I don’t know if he has Travis yet, but he must be on the way to getting him.
“No, I don’t think that we can talk over the phone. I think that this is something we must do in person.” I need to angle a chance here. “I’m sure you have some things that you want to discuss with me as well. Am I right?”
He pauses for just a second, before thankfully giving me the positive answer that I need. This is good, if we get to meet face to face then I’m sure I can figure this out. It’s the step in the right direction that I need. If I get to see this asshole, then I’m sure I can help Aisha out at last. It isn’t happening right away, but I can’t let impatience get the better of me.
22
Aisha
January 24th
I’m shaking. I’m trembling from my head to my toes, and I think I have been shaking like this all night long. I haven’t slept even a wink, which isn’t because of the horrible hard bed, although that doesn’t help, but because I’m so scared. Terror doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Actually, being in jail has made all of this much more real. Having hand cuffs on was horrible but being locked in a cell behind bars is something else. There is something ice cold about it, something very unwelcoming and horrifying. It has chilled me to the bone. It isn’t exactly like I was planning on a life of crime, but if I was this would sure as hell put me off.
I don’t like it. It’s horrible. It’s turning me inside out. I just keep thinking that this could end up being my life forever. If I have done something really wrong, which it seems like I have even though I can’t quite fathom it myself, then this is where I will be forever.
I have cried on and off throughout the night, but not for myself. For Travis. I don’t know where in the world my son is, which is a first since the moment that he was born. I did ask at some point, but I was just told that Child Protective Service have him and that’s the end of the matter. But is he with them? Or is he with Ronnie? There is no way in hell he can look after Travis. He doesn’t even know him, and I highly doubt that he can even look after himself. If he does have him, it makes me wonder if he will find a way to completely poison Travis against me. Will he cause my child to grow up hating the woman who gave birth to him but is now rotting in jail?
“Oh God,” I wail quietly to myself while clutching on to my stomach because it hurts so bad. If Ronnie wanted to break me, then he has succeeded. I am right on the edge of being broken completely. “Oh God, Travis, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry…”
All of a sudden, the cell door opens, and an officer there starts talking to me. I’m in such a shocked, terrible state that I don’t know what is being said to me. I’m sure it’s important and my brain keeps screaming at my ears to listen, but they are seemingly completely blocked up.
But then I see an all too familiar face which makes everything feel better. It’s Marc. Somehow, he has turned up here like my knight in shining armor once more. I want to run into his arms and beg him to take me from this hell, but I don’t know if he can.
“I have posted bond,” he half whispers to me. His words get through, even if the police officers don’t. “You can come home with me. Are you ready to leave?”
Relief absolutely floods me. I don’t know how I manage to keep myself up right, but I do.
“We… we are going?” I stammer out. “We are leaving?” It seems too good to be true. I don’t want to believe it until I know for sure because I’m scarred to be let down all over again. I kept getting my hopes up that it was all an error yesterday and that didn’t happen…
“We are. Come on.” Marc nods at me, but I still don’t move at first. “Here, let me help you.”
He holds out his hands to me and I take them. He feels so real, it can’t be a dream, this has to be actually happening. I’m finally going to be free. I’m going to get out of here and go back to living whatever life I had before. I will never ever have to set foot in a prison again…
Okay, so maybe it won’t be that simple, perhaps it won’t be that straight forward, but I am getting out of here and that’s the main thing. I won’t be stuck in here for the rest of my life.
“Travis…?” I whisper hopefully, but he shakes his head no. I try not to let that crush me, because this is still the first step in getting him back, but it does a bit. I fall deep down into the pit of depression again. I’m just glad that I have Marc here to sort things out for me. As always, he is calm and in control, able to pick up whatever slack I leave behind.
* * *
The bed is warm and comforting, but I don’t feel any better as it cradles me. I cry so hard into the pillows that my lungs ache. Marc does his best to comfort me as well, but nothing is going to work. Nothing at all. Not until Travis is back with me.
He could still be with the CPS, he could be with Ronnie, I just don’t know at all.
“Let me know if there is anything that I can do,” Marc says, for what feels like the hundredth time. “Let me know if I can get you anything or do anything…”
I don’t know what I want. Nothing really, aside from the impossible. Although maybe a bit of sleep… I don’t really want to rest because I shouldn’t when my son is out there in the world and I don’t know where, but I can’t fight my body forever. It’s a natural need.
“You take some rest,” Marc whispers softly to me, his words tickling my ears. “You need sleep. Give in and we can sort everything out afterwards. Things are always much easier to sort out with a calm mind.” He’s right, I know he is. I always think better when I’ve slept, and I need all of my faculties intact to make sure I get Travis back. “I will be here, whenever you need me…”
The world pinholes and turns to black, I get swallowed up by the sleep that’s wanted to come for me for a very long time. I just hope that when I wake up, everything will be different.
* * *
“Marc,” I groan as the light infiltrates my vision and wakes me up. I feel groggy, like I have a terrible headache. It’s almost like I have been out all-night drinking, and this is the well-deserved hang over, but I haven’t had the fun of drinking the night before. Just the worst day of the rest of my life. “Marc, where are you?”
He doesn’t answer me. All I get back is a resounding silence. But I suppose that’s just about the only thing that encourages me to lift my aching head off the pillow and to push my weary body out of bed. I don’t know how long I have been sleeping, it could have been minutes or hours. Not that I suppose it matters because I am up now.
“Marc?” I pad through his house just to find no sign of him around. I almost begin to worry until I spot a letter with my name on the outside sitting on the dining room table. “Hmm.”
I grab and open it, seeing Marc’s lovely hand writing across the page. In his words, he apologizes for leaving, but tells me that he has to go to a meeting, to help me sort things out. I have no idea what this could possibly mean, but I can only assume that it’s money related, due to my bond. I don’t even want to complain about him helping me out financially this time around because he took me away from that horrible place, he saved me from my own personal hell, and the last time that I didn’t ask him for help… well, it didn’t exactly work out too well for me. I will just have to find a way to pay him back later on in life…
Unless he kicks me out of course. Unless he never wants to see me again, which I definitely wouldn’t be able to blame him for after everything that I have put him through.
He has gone from a lovely calm peaceful life to non-stop drama and it’s all because of me. I’m sure he can do without it, so I can hardly be annoyed if he wants me gone.
“There isn’t any harm in getting help anyway,” I tell myself sadly. “People do it all the time. I have done it all alone for too long and failed. If Marc wants to help me then so be it.”
It still doesn’t feel too good, I hate the idea of relying on anyone, but to be honest, I don’t have any choice anymore. My pride hasn’t helped me, so I need it gone.
“Just be grateful.” I sink down in the dining room chair and lean my head on the table. “Be glad that there is at least one person who wants to help you.”
I have things that I need to do anyway. Marc might be able to assist me with finances, but I need to speak to CPS. I’m the one who is the parent to Travis so this needs to be all on me. I have to let the authorities know that Ronnie isn’t good enough to be a parent for Travis, and that I am. Yes, I made a mistake with the whole loan thing, but as long as I let them know that I am working on making things right again, surely, they can’t continue to blame me? There must be other people who have made mistakes before, maybe even worse than what I have done, and they are allowed to keep their children. So, I should be able to as well.
“You need to get proof. That’s a place to start. Ronnie had proof… or he had something. Enough to get me locked away anyway. So, that’s what I need to do as well. Find proof. Find a way to take him down. Do something worse to him than what he did to me.”
I have a plan, which means something. It’s more than I had before, which is all because of the night of sleep, but I don’t know where to begin with it. I think it’s because I’m still foggy.
“Take a shower,” I tell myself, knowing that it always helps to make me feel better. “Have a shower and then call the CPS. See if you can get some information from them.”
I do feel confident that they will have to tell me something because I am Travis’s mother, and I don’t think that what I have done can be considered a danger to him. I’m sure that they will at least tell me where he is. Although if I find out that he is with Ronnie, I don’t know what I will do. It infuriates the living shit out of me to even imagine it. I don’t think Ronnie lives in a place that is suitable for a child. It probably isn’t even clean and knowing my ex-boyfriend, I’m sure that it’s filled with beer. Beer and junk food. And probably a string of unsuitable women coming through those revolving doors… urgh, it makes me sick to imagine.
“Don’t think about it.” I practically run into the shower because I need my head cleared, and I need it done right now. “Don’t worry. Don’t stress. Stressing does nothing. Stressing just winds you up and makes you feel so much worse.”
But telling myself not to be stressed isn’t working, I don’t suppose it ever does. It isn’t exactly the most helpful emotion in the world. So instead, I’m going to have to find a way to use the stress, to drive me forward. I’m going to use it to my advantage because that sure as shit beats sitting around and stewing in it all alone until Marc comes back.
23
Marc
January 24th
I don’t like this guy. I don’t like him one bit. He gives me a bad vibe from the off. Of course, I know that I’m going to feel this way because he is the ex-boyfriend of the woman that I’m pretty sure that I’m falling head over heels for, plus he has done a lot to hurt her, but I really don’t like him. More than I thought. I might even hate this asshole.
I mean, what did Aisha even see in him? My God, he’s dirty and disgusting, and clearly leads a low life from first sight. But I suppose she was young at the time and we all make stupid mistakes when we are youthful and naïve. I’m sure that I would never go for Chloe now…
“So, you’re here.” Ronnie shrugs his shoulders and darts his eyes around the parking lot. It wasn’t my idea to meet here, yet he’s the one who seems uncomfortable. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you about Aisha.” I don’t miss the way that Ronnie rolls his eyes. He really is a piece of work. “And about Travis as well. I want to discuss your child as well.”
“What about him?” He glowers. He doesn’t look impressed at all, but I honestly don’t know what he thought was going to happen here. “What are you here for?”
“Do you have him?” I cock an eyebrow. “Have the CPS handed him over to you?”
“Not yet.” Again, he shrugs like he isn’t bothered at all. “But they will.”
“And you want him?” I need to know what his intentions are. “You want to have him?”
Ronnie narrows his eyes at me, as if he’s trying to look intimidated, but he doesn’t manage to pull it off at all. He just looks like he has something stuck up his ass.
“Look, mate, I don’t know what impression you have of me,” he sneers. “But I’m not that bad guy. I’m not just some idiot who turned his back on his kid. There is more to the story. There is much more to me. You have definitely only heard one side of things.”
“Okay.” I extend my arms wide in an open invitation. “Then that’s why I am here. To listen to your side of the story. I want to hear about things from your point of view as well. I’m not just here to defend anyone. I’m here to get the full truth from both sides.”
This disarms him, I can see it, which is exactly what I was going for. I need him to think that I want to know what he has to say because then he might open up to me more.
“Oh, right. Well… I did love Aisha at the time we were together.” He considers this for just a second. “No, actually, I don’t think I loved her. It was more of a childish thing, to be honest. But I did like her a lot. I did care for her… just not as much as my other love.”
Holy fuck, it seems like I am about to hear another cheating story which is going to seriously rile me up. I can’t stand the idea of someone having Aisha and screwing it up like that.
“Gambling,” he says, now knocking me off my kilter. “I have always loved gambling… but I didn’t realize how much of a problem it was until more recently. Even then I didn’t see it.” His face falls and I begin to see another side of him. A more vulnerable side of him. Not that I am about to fall into that at all. “I just saw a need for money and that was everything. So, I heard about the pregnancy before Aisha came to tell me. Her father called me, I guess just as she stormed out of the house, and he offered me money… a lot of money, to tell her that I wasn’t interested in having a child. He said that it was for the best because we were too young and poor to have a child. I will be honest; I wasn’t ready anyway. He told me that if I took the money, he would ensure that Aisha had an abortion, and everything would be okay.”
“Woah.” I didn’t know this and I’m sure Aisha doesn’t either.
“Right. And although Aisha vanished, I was under the impression that was what happened. I didn’t even know that my son was in the world until a couple of years ago.”
“That… that must have been a shock.”
“Oh, it was, believe me. And I have seen Aisha’s parents a few times and they didn’t tell me.” He shakes his head. “They have had a lot of chances and they never did.”
“I bet you were mad.” I feel like we are really getting somewhere now, but I don’t know where. I don’t feel like this is about to go where I think it will and I’m not sure why.
“I was mad. But again, I still needed money. So, I guess that’s when her father became my cash cow. Paying me every month to keep out of Aisha’s life. I figure they owe me.” He pauses to either let me agree or disagree with him, but I do neither. I’m in shock. I guess this spurred him on to continue. “But that all stopped a little while back. Back when Aisha called me for money.” She called him. Fucking hell. “I guess she must have called them as well and her father contacted me to say that he couldn’t pay me anymore because he wants to help out his daughter. Of course, that’s going to piss me off because he owes me. He owes me!”
“But Aisha had Trav
is and she needed money for your son….”
“She can’t get money,” he bites back angrily. “I have nothing. I lost it all.”
“Right… because of the gambling…” Does he not see this? Surely, it’s so obvious.
“Pfft, you are clearly not someone who has struggled with addiction. It’s a disease. Not something you can help.” He runs his eyes up and down me judgingly.
“I know, I wasn’t saying that,” I reply carefully. “I’m just trying to assess what is happening here. Is this all happening because Aisha’s father cut you off?” He nods, making me practically see fucking red. I really have to try and keep my rage inside. “Okay, so it is more about the money than Travis then? It’s more that you can’t keep on top of things?”
“You don’t look like someone who has ever had to struggle,” he snaps, reminding me of something that Aisha said with regards to the diamond necklace. I really don’t want to give off that impression to anyone, especially when it isn’t the truth. “You can’t understand.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to seem like I don’t get you. I’m trying to understand…”
“I need money.” His cheeks stain red. I don’t know if this is because of anger or humiliation. “I need money to get myself out of this hole. Then everything will be okay again. I need Aisha’s father to start paying me again because I can’t keep on top of things without that cash. I don’t know how he suddenly expects me to start paying up all of a sudden.” He stares at me, his eyes flashing with an intense darkness now. “It wouldn’t be kidnapping even if I did just walk up to Aisha’s house and take Travis. He is my son after all. But I wanted to do things in a more subtle way. I need Aisha’s fucking father to see how serious I am. I need that money.”
